


Screenburn

by Ironlawyer



Category: Marvel 616
Genre: Angst, Canon Temporary Character Death, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Pining, Remix, Television
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-17 22:18:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13668447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ironlawyer/pseuds/Ironlawyer
Summary: Tony has a fantasy of how things might've been, and when the producers of the Avengers TV show need his money, he has the opportunity to turn that fantasy into something almost real.





	Screenburn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sineala](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Unmasked](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9490778) by [Sineala](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala/pseuds/Sineala). 



> Thanks to dawittiest for beta!

When the newsfeeds and satellite images settle down to a background buzz as his brain tells him it’s time to sleep, there are three things Tony lies awake thinking about. The day he met Steve and the day Steve died. The third is a day that never happened.

Tony lies on the bunk for the first time in two days and stares at the scorch marks on the workshop ceiling. Even though he’s alone, he says the words quietly and thinks of how Steve might’ve reacted. That little half smile tugging at the corner of his lips, the way his eyes shone when he was happy. _I love you too,_ he might’ve said _,_ if Tony had been braver.

It would’ve made no difference. Steve would’ve been polite, turned him down with a gentle tone, _I love you like a friend, Tony_. Things would’ve been awkward for a while and they would’ve never brought it up again. They would’ve gone back to normal, only Steve would touch him a little less and break eye contact a little quicker.

Tony says, _I love you_ and thinks of the bullets tearing through Steve’s flesh. He says _I love you_ and thinks of the ice dripping away as Steve looked at the Iron Man mask with confusion in his eyes. He says, _I love you_ and thinks of Steve kissing him.

He turns over and buries his face in a pillow and wonders what it would’ve been like to really say those words. What it would’ve been like if Steve had loved him back. He imagines a battle, the suit damaged and his body broken - maybe if he thought he was dying he could’ve said it. Maybe Steve would’ve leaned in and pulled the helmet loose and kissed his bloody lips and Tony could’ve been the one to die.

Maybe if he’d been with Steve on the courthouse steps, watching his blood drain out, he could’ve said the words then. When Steve was too weak and tired to find the words to question it. When there was no more time and no second chances.

He thinks of all the times he thought about saying it. Watching movies in the tower and the words feeling like helium on his tongue, ready to float out any time he opened his mouth. The way his fingers twitched to touch Steve’s, but he’d reach for the popcorn instead.

He imagines saying _I love you_ and Steve saying it back.

He thinks of Steve’s body lying cold and bloody on the hellicarrier.

He imagines saying _I love you_ and never hearing it back.

-

They call him when he’s in a conference. Extremis displays the caller ID and even though it’s been two years since they last called, he remembers the number. He answers because he’s used to it now. He can hold fifteen conversations without missing a beat.

“We’re thinking of doing another season.”

Tony forgets what he’s saying. Extremis tells him his heartbeat spikes and his blood pressure drops. It’s ridiculous. It’s a TV show. Steve is dead. But in that world they’re still friends and there was no war and Steve is still breathing and smiling and _alive, alive, alive._

He turns to Dugan and Maria and half the high level SHIELD staff and says, “I’m sorry, something’s come up.” And he walks out to the hallway and doubles over, trying to breathe through the tightness in his chest.

The studio wants to cancel, they tell him. Too controversial. They’re worried about what the public will think, idolising a terrorist, trivialising a war. Tony wants to tell them that Steve was not a terrorist. Tony wants the world to know that Steve was a hero and a good man to the end and Tony could never hate him. For all the mistakes Tony’s ever made, if there was one thing he could change, it would be him they buried instead of Steve.

“We need funding,” the producer says.

Tony thinks about a world where he could have anything. Where Steve is still alive and they fight super villains instead of each other. He thinks about a world where he loves Steve and Steve loves him back.

It turns his stomach. Something hard and cold that’s been hibernating in his chest since _that day_ is churned loose by the thought of another fucking fantasy.

He think about how they used to be, the Steve who would’ve wanted him to be happy. Maybe things had changed and Steve had died hating him, but that doesn’t mean Steve wouldn’t want him to be happy.

He doesn’t deserve this. He chose his reality and he should have to live with it.

“Okay,” Tony says, because he is weak. “Whatever you need. But I want something in return.”

He doesn’t stop to wonder if he should do this. What their friends will think. It doesn’t matter, they could hardly think less of him. He is selfish and lonely and he wants this for himself.

-

He calls Henry that night. They haven’t talked since the funeral. Since he sat with Tony all night, silently watching cheesy movies and pretending he wasn’t there to keep Tony from drinking.

Henry answers quickly, like he always does, because Tony has called him too many times with a bottle of scotch in his hand. “Hey, Tony, what’s up?” A kind of forced casual with an undercurrent of concern that’s always there whenever Tony calls him.

“I need a favour,” Tony says.

“Is everything okay?” What Henry really means is _are you drinking._

“Yeah,” Tony says, “everything’s fine.” And what he really means is, _I’m not drinking._

He kissed Henry once. Drunk and horny, it had seemed funny, like he was kissing himself. Henry had pulled away and smiled and said sorry, like it was his fault. It had never made it to the papers and that’s when Tony really started to call Henry a friend.

“Look,” Tony says, “it’s a dumb idea. I just… need you to go back to the show.”

“Huh.” Henry pauses. There’s a long static silence over the line and Tony wishes Extremis would let him see Henry. Hack the nearest security camera or webcam and try to work out what Henry’s thinking. He could do it, maybe, if he tried, but he’s lost enough friends. “Why?” Henry asks.

He should’ve planed this conversation better. “Henry,” he says, “I…” The words catch in his throat like gravel, and his lips move around them but no noise comes out. It should be easy now, he thinks. Steve is dead and gone and nothing can ever come of this.

“I was in love with Steve,” he says. He feels like he’s going to be sick.

“I know,” Henry says.

Tony’s eyes are burning and his breath stops, caught in his chest like his head's been pushed underwater. If Henry knew, he wonders who else could’ve. Maybe Steve had known too, maybe he’d seen the way Tony watched him and chosen to ignore it. Something shaky that’s almost a sob breaks out of Tony’s throat.

“Hey,” Henry says. “It’s okay, Tony.”

But Steve hated him and now he’s dead, and Tony is alone. He can say those words to Henry and he could say those words to the whole goddamn world and it wouldn’t make a difference.

He wants it anyway.

“I want you to do something for me,” Tony says. Maybe Steve would hate it but Steve is dead now. He doesn’t get a say. Maybe the whole world will judge him, call him crazy and selfish and an insult to the name of Captain America.

He wants it anyway.

He stumbles over the words quick and desperate like maybe if he can get them out fast enough they’ll be less overwhelming, less important. Less pathetic. Henry is silent and patient and lets his stream of shaky words run and run until he has no more. “It has to be you,” Tony says, because if Henry says no, that’s it. He can’t have some stranger say those words.

“I’ll do it,” Henry says. “Of course I’ll do it.”

Tony wonders how he still has a friend like Henry.

-

He watches the show alone with a glass of bourbon on the table in front of him.

His leg shakes and his fingers tap all the way though it. He misses most of the story, focused instead on every glance and smile Henry gives Steve and wondering if he’d ever been that blatant. He remembers his eyes following Steve across the room, telling himself to stop staring, to be less obvious, to pick a spot somewhere in the distance and focus on that. Maybe everyone noticed but Steve.

The storyline is wrapping up, the battle over, day saved, villain caught and heroes safe. Everything simple, easy, like it used to be.

He could stop watching, change the channel and never have to see this. There’s nothing real to be gained here.

Since getting Extremis, time has been flexible, like a sort of putty, sometimes dense, compacted, everything happening in an instant, sometimes stretched out, long and thin like a video playing at half speed. That’s what it’s like now, watching Henry breathing on the screen, leaning closer, and wondering when it will ever be over. It hurts as much as watching the bullets hit Steve’s chest.

Henry kisses the facsimile of Steve and Tony wonders if he is supposed to feel better. There’s something warm in his stomach when he looks at them, something tight and achy and burning that can’t decide if it’s happiness or pain. He imagines Steve’s lips on his for real, how it would feel like everything his life has been building up to and all the things that had gone wrong between them would be made right again.

He imagines the smell of Steve’s uniform, that woody detergent used specially for it. The way his voice got a little breathless after a long fight. The way he used to smile. The actor doesn’t capture it, no one could.

He plays the video again and looks away from the screen. He hears Steve’s words, mouths Henry’s lines back and stares at the bourbon on the table. He’s sick, he thinks. A pervert. A drunk. Pathetic. Turning the memory of his dead friend into some fucked up fantasy and showing it to the whole world.

Extremis is telling him he has fifty messages and phone calls and interview requests already. He watches the video.

Henry says, “I love you,” and the words are quick and desperate and exactly how Tony has always imagined them. Henry is a good actor. It’s as close to reality as he’s even going to get.

Tony gets up and leaves the video playing, tips the bourbon down the sink and thinks that Henry, at least, should be proud of him.

He watches the video five more times, until he can’t make out the picture through the haze and his body won’t stop shaking as he sobs.

**Author's Note:**

> [On Tumblr](http://ironlawyer.tumblr.com/post/171536043877/fic-screenburn)


End file.
